The Widow Lerouge eBook

Calmer now, he examined the case more soundly.
As a whole, thank heaven! there was nothing done which
could not be repaired. He accused himself, however,
none the less harshly. Chance alone had stopped
him. At that moment he resolved that he would
never undertake another investigation. His profession
henceforth inspired him with an unconquerable loathing.
Then his interview with Claire had re-opened all the
old wounds in his heart, and they bled more painfully
than ever. He felt, in despair, that his life
was broken, ruined. A man may well feel so, when
all women are as nothing to him except one, whom he
may never dare hope to possess. Too pious a man
to think of suicide, he asked himself with anguish
what would become of him when he threw aside his magistrate’s
robes.

Then he turned again to the business in hand.
In any case, innocent or guilty, Albert was really
the Viscount de Commarin, the count’s legitimate
son. But was he guilty? Evidently he was
not.

“I think,” exclaimed M. Daburon suddenly,
“I must speak to the Count de Commarin.
Constant, send to his house a message for him to come
here at once; if he is not at home, he must be sought
for.”

M. Daburon felt that an unpleasant duty was before
him. He would be obliged to say to the old nobleman:
“Sir, your legitimate son is not Noel, but Albert.”
What a position, not only painful, but bordering on
the ridiculous! As a compensation, though, he
could tell him that Albert was innocent.

To Noel he would also have to tell the truth:
hurl him to earth, after having raised him among the
clouds. What a blow it would be! But, without
a doubt, the count would make him some compensation;
at least, he ought to.

“Now,” murmured the magistrate, “who
can be the criminal?”

An idea crossed his mind, at first it seemed to him
absurd. He rejected it, then thought of it again.
He examined it in all its various aspects. He
had almost adopted it, when M. de Commarin entered.
M. Daburon’s messenger had arrived just as the
count was alighting from his carriage, on returning
with Claire from Madame Gerdy’s.

CHAPTER XVIII.

Old Tabaret talked, but he acted also.

Abandoned by the investigating magistrate to his own
resources, he set to work without losing a minute
and without taking a moment’s rest.

The story of the cabriolet, drawn by a swift horse,
was exact in every particular.

Lavish with his money, the old fellow had gathered
together a dozen detectives on leave or rogues out
of work; and at the head of these worthy assistants,
seconded by his friend Lecoq, he had gone to Bougival.

He had actually searched the country, house by house,
with the obstinacy and the patience of a maniac hunting
for a needle in a hay-stack.

His efforts were not absolutely wasted.

After three days’ investigation, he felt comparatively
certain that the assassin had not left the train at
Rueil, as all the people of Bougival, La Jonchere,
and Marly do, but had gone on as far as Chatou.